The Carrack/S-class Light Cruiser was designed by the Damorian Manufacturing Corporation in space above the planet Esseles. It was an advanced version of the Carrack-class Light Cruiser used by the Republic Navy towards the end of the Republic era, and saw service on nearly every front of the Clone Wars. After the fall of the Republic, the Imperial Navy contracted with Damorian Manufacturing to address the flaws in the original Carrack-Class design, namely that it ha proven vulnerable to direct starfighter attack.. This resulted in the Carrack/ S-class and Carrack/ I-class Light Cruisers which were quickly integrated in the Imperial fleets. The Carrack/ S-class Light Cruiser replaced the ion cannons batteries to better defend the fleets from starfighters and missiles.

The Carrack/ S-class is large for a frigate, measuring longer than the Nebulon-B class, and a little under a third of the length of a standard Star Destroyer. It's designers included several new safety features like reinforced bulkheads and separate self-contained life-support systems for different parts of the ship. The enhanced life-support and construction added weight to the vessel, and to ease strain on the engines the engineers removed several plates of armor around the power generators. The vulnerability of the generators is seen as the greatest weakness of this otherwise improved model. This said, The Carrack/ S class-cruiser can survive attacks that would cripple most capital ships.